For the first time in a long time, I skipped Black Friday — did you?

I've never been a big fan of Black Friday shopping, but I usually manage to find at least one good deal. Not so much this year.

Now that Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday are behind us, I'm left wondering what happened to the deals. I've been tracking sales, especially in the technology space, for many years as part of my job here at the company. MobileSyrup. And before that, I worked at Best Buy and other retailers, so I have over a decade of experience working with Black Friday and other holiday sales periods. Very little caught my attention this year, and I had a hard time finding offerings worthy of a recommendation.

Take wireless communications for example. At best, the offers were the same as last year, and in many cases the offers were worse. Last holidays I purchased a great 35/50 GB data plan (which later increased to $35/75 GB), and there were other plans like Options costing 34/60 GB and 39/100 GB.

However, this year the main “offer” from various providers was $40 for 60GB. There were also a few 39/70GB offerings from companies like Freedom, which are better but not as attractive as what we saw last year.

Moreover, we know the average Canadian only uses about 9GB of mobile data per monthhowever, carriers continue to push plans with larger data buckets that most people won't use. I don't want to pay more or get more data; I want to pay less and get less data, and I think most people feel the same way.

Somehow, carriers have made $0 smartphones more expensive than buying them outright.

Even worse, when it comes to buying phones, many of the deals don't actually offer much in the way of savings. A few providers offered “free” phones, but most of the offers came with exorbitantly expensive wireless plans.

Take the iPhone 16 for example – it was listed for $0 per month financing, but only on a $115 per month plan from companies like Bell and Rogers. That works out to $2,760 over 24 months, not including the fact that you'll have to return the phone at the end of the contract or pay more to keep it. But the iPhone 16 costs just $999 if you buy it from Apple, meaning that if you buy it directly from Apple and get any plan for $70 a month or less, you're actually saving money compared to the carrier's “deal.”

Of course, not all the deals were that bad—Freedom Mobile, for example, had the iPhone 16 for $0/month with a $69/month plan if you return the device at the end of the contract—but I'd say most people are still better off buying the cheaper plan outright.

Looking beyond telecom, Black Friday sales in Canada overall were up six percent, according to data released by Salesforce Retail Insider. However, use of buy now, pay later (BNPL) programs has also risen from 2.8 percent last year to more than five percent this year, suggesting more people are relying on financial services to afford deals. The average discount remained virtually unchanged, rising one percent this year to an average of 28 percent. And we've seen some good deals, like the PlayStation 5 deals – a welcome discount, bye Nintendo And Microsoft this year they raised the prices of their consoles.

Unfortunately, the situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon. On the eve of Black Friday, leaders Telus and Bell spoke at the Desjardins conference in Toronto – they seemed confident that wireless sales were cooling down and returning to normal, and both companies were focusing on home Internet deals instead. Unfortunately, this likely means Boxing Week will also be a bad week for wireless deals.